The Bone Breaker

On the night of July 29th, Thad Phillips is fast asleep when he suddenly feels himself being lifted. This isn’t a dream; it marks the start of a terrifying reality. Thad and his family had recently moved to the area, and after a night out for dinner, he had dozed off on the couch while watching TV. At some point, he becomes aware that he is being carried into the house. Still half-asleep and groggy, Thad assumes it’s his father, who is simply taking him to bed as he has done countless times before.

However, the person holding him is neither his father nor his mother; in fact, he isn’t even a family member. As Thad’s awareness sharpens, he realizes he is in the arms of a stranger. Despite the unsettling situation, the man seems friendly, and Thad follows him into the night, traveling about a mile to an old, dilapidated house.

Upon entering, Thad is hit by a foul odor; the place is a complete mess, filled with garbage and rotting food scattered across the counters, with the floor piled at least a foot high. The stranger introduces himself as Joe and mentions that he’s planning a party later, rattling off a few names that Thad recognizes from school.

Joe then invites Thad to check out some cool model cars and trucks he has upstairs before the guests arrive. Thad, intrigued, agrees and follows him up the creaky wooden steps, completely unaware that he is walking into the clutches of a predator.

As they enter the room, Joe’s demeanor shifts dramatically from warm and inviting to erratic and menacing. In an instant, he lifts Thad and throws him onto a filthy bed, straddling him and pinning his arms to the side. The boy realizes too late the danger he is in.

In a desperate attempt to escape, the boy thrashes wildly, but the 90-pound Thad is no match for Joe, who is nearly twice his size. Joe seizes Thad's right foot and twists it until there's a sickening snap. Thad is left utterly bewildered and shocked, having no clue who this maniac is or why he's doing this. After breaking the boy's leg, Joe eases his grip, shrugging his shoulders as if to apologize. Despite his injury, Thad manages to break free from Joe's hold, adrenaline surging through his veins.

This is a matter of life and death. Thad leaps off the bed and starts running. Later, he tells the police that with every step he takes around the house, he feels his leg and foot splintering. He manages to escape the bedroom, racing down the stairs, through the living room, and into the kitchen where the front door is located.

But Joe catches up to him, tackling him to the ground. He drags Thad, who is kicking and screaming for his life, back to the living room and forces him face down on the couch. Joe then sits on Thad's back like a wrestler, taking his right leg and forcing it above his head. He leans down with all his weight until Thad's thigh pops, dislocating from his hip. Now, Thad is unable to escape.

Honestly, I've never broken a bone in my life, but the thought of this kind of pain unsettles me. I've studied a lot of crime, and this type of attack is quite rare, though the motive behind it makes sense—more on that later. At this point, Joe's demeanor shifts dramatically, and he becomes surprisingly friendly. The Bone Breaker continues this cycle for hours, and when Thad isn't being abused, Joe even carries him around the house, and they watch TV together.

And Let's talk about life, which might seem a bit strange. But hey, let's make the most of our time together before you inevitably hurt me again. This situation isn't entirely unusual; we've seen similar patterns with some individuals we've discussed on the channel. Take Harvey Glatman, for instance—he would physically and sexually assault his victims, but afterward, he would cuddle with them and watch TV. This behavior suggests that once their sadistic impulses are fulfilled, they can revert to a semblance of normalcy.

Despite being just a kid, Thad surprisingly possesses the emotional intelligence to navigate this situation. He pretends they are just friends hanging out, hoping to disarm Joe and lower his defenses. In his mind, he thinks that if he acts friendly, maybe Joe will show him some mercy and let him go.

During one of these quieter moments, Thad asks Joe why he is doing this to him. Joe reveals that he is fascinated by the sound of breaking bones. When Thad questions why Joe doesn't just break his own bones, Joe confesses that he has tried but struggles to find the right angles to achieve the desired breaks. He goes on to admit that he has done this to two other boys before, leaving Thad to wonder what became of them.

The following morning, after spending a few hours watching TV together, Joe suddenly picks up his injured father and carries him upstairs, resuming his brutal assault on the young boy's body.

He seizes Thad's left ankle, twisting it in the same manner as his right one the day before, until it snaps. Joe then methodically manipulates the boy's skin, making it appear as if rubber bands are wrapped around his leg, before twisting his foot backward to point in the opposite direction. Thad desperately tries to fight back, striking Joe in the head repeatedly, but this only fuels Joe's rage. He grabs a pillow and smothers Thad's face, threatening to break his neck in the same way he had done to his legs if he doesn't stop resisting.

Throughout the day, Joe comes and goes from the house, each time inflicting new injuries on Thad as part of a twisted cycle of cruelty and care. He tends to Thad's wounds, fashioning casts out of socks and forcing the boy to wear makeshift leg braces, making him walk around the house. To describe Joe as perverse would be an understatement. Thad later reveals to investigators that Joe would become aroused and pleasure himself while watching the boy suffer. He epitomizes the definition of a sadist, deriving satisfaction from inflicting pain on

The more intense the victim's pain becomes, the more exhilarated he feels as night falls. Joel finally makes the decision to leave the house and go out with friends, leaving Thad sprawled across the bed upstairs. His captor believes Thad is incapable of escaping due to his severely injured limbs, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

As soon as he hears the sound of the vehicle door closing and pulling away from the driveway, Thad propels himself off the bed. Using only his upper body, he summons all his strength to drag his lifeless weight across the floor, his fingers clawing at the ground like a snake as he inches toward the staircase. Unable to walk down the steps, he throws himself headfirst down to the bottom and loses consciousness upon impact.

When he regains awareness, he finds Joel standing over him. Joel drags Thad back upstairs, unleashing a fury unlike anything Thad has ever experienced. He climbs on top of Thad and begins to jump up and down, shattering each of Thad's ribs one by one. Once the assault is over, Thad is thrown into a closet, and the door is locked behind him.

On July 31, 1996, nearly 43 hours after the unimaginable nightmare began, Thad finds himself parched, famished, and growing weaker by the moment. He suspects he may be suffering from internal bleeding and realizes that if he doesn't escape soon, he will die. Still trapped in the closet, Thad fumbles in the darkness, searching for a way out. Eventually, he discovers a large wooden guitar and begins to smash it against the door repeatedly until it finally gives way.

He crawls for a short distance before losing consciousness, only to wake up and crawl again, passing out multiple times in the process. After what feels like an eternity, he finally reaches the front door near the kitchen. There, he spots a telephone mounted on the wall with a long, dangling cord. He yanks at it until the receiver falls to the ground.

The call is traced, and police are dispatched to rescue him. Thad is rushed to the hospital in critical condition. Upon arrival, doctors assess his injuries and determine that he was mere hours away from death. His legs are unrecognizable, bruised and swollen, with toes and kneecaps possibly facing the wrong way. His thigh and hip bone are dislocated and broken, and he is also suffering from internal bleeding. Despite the severity of his injuries, Thad is still alive.

In the chaos of his rescue, he manages to inform investigators that his captor, identified as 17-year-old Joe Clark, had committed similar acts before. Shockingly, the individual who inflicted such brutality on Thad is just another kid. The house of Horrors belongs to his parents

organized into three columns in Joe's handwriting, with headings indicating when he planned to abduct each boy and what he intended to do with them. Disturbing phrases like "get to know" and "can wait" are included, along with the most unsettling note, "the leg thing." Thanks to Thad's courage, none of these potential victims suffer the same fate he did.

Thad had previously informed the police that Joe had committed similar acts before, but he couldn't recall the name of one victim. However, he remembered Joe mentioning a boy named Chris Steiner.

Rewind to a year earlier, on July 4, 1994, when a boy named Christian Steiner vanished from his home in Baraboo. Signs of a break-in were evident, including a slashed window screen and muddy footprints inside the house. Authorities were baffled, unsure of who would kidnap a 14-year-old boy, and even speculated that he might have run away.

Five days later, his body was discovered, battered and bloated, tangled in branches along the Baraboo River. The medical examiner ruled the cause of death as drowning, with water found in the boy's lungs, but the manner of death was listed as undetermined. This meant that the death could have been due to homicide, suicide, accident, or natural causes.

The coroner had only X-rayed Chris's skull, neglecting his legs and arms, leaving the Steiners unaware of the true circumstances surrounding their son's death until Thad revealed it a year later. Following Joe's arrest, authorities exhumed Chris's body and compared X-rays of his remains with those of Thad's injuries.

Shockingly, they found that Chris had suffered significant breaks in his legs that were identical to Thad's injuries. Every fracture Thad had mirrored one on Chris, leading to a change in the cause of death from undetermined to homicide. Experts concluded that Chris had drowned after being thrown into the river, unable to swim due to his broken legs.

Two trials ensued: one for Thad Phillips and another for Chris Steiner. During Thad's trial, Joe admitted to abducting him but claimed he only intended to hang out and had no recollection of how Thad was injured, stating he had "blacked out."

He pleaded not guilty by reason of mental defect, with the defense arguing that Joe's mother had used drugs during her pregnancy, leading to developmental issues. They also noted that Joe had suffered a traumatic brain injury in a bike accident a year prior, which could have triggered his deviant behavior. However, the jury was not convinced, and Joe Clark was found guilty, receiving a 100-year prison sentence. Thad subsequently sued him for $21 million, winning the case but ultimately receiving none of the money.

In Chris's trial, a similar outcome occurred, with Joe being convicted of murder and receiving an additional life sentence. Joseph Clark remains in prison, maintaining his innocence to this day.